Gentleman’s Valet #3

Following on from my last post, the next phase of this project was the box and drawer. Fairly straightforward dovetails fo the box, and fitted to panels top and bottom with dowels. The bottom dowels go straight through into the box supports and the top dowels go straight through into some beading.

The drawer itself has half blind dovetails on the front and through dovetails at the back.

I ploughed a groove in the all or drawer panels to accept a leather lined piece of ply for the drawer bottom.

I then moved onto the hanger and hanger support, taking the roughed out components and refining the shape a little. The two pieces of the assembly are held to  the box, and to each other, with some home-made dowels that I made by hammering thin oak stock through a hinge hole.

 

The final component was the drawer handle, which was made from sycamore, like the inlay. I used a molding plane to cut a channel in the underside, then cut the handle to its  final dimensions and planed it smooth.

Now for lots and lots of sanding…

…some gluing…

…a little bit of oil…

…some branding…

and some shellac.

The oil, was my homemade blend of linseed oil, polyurethane and turpentine, and the shellac was homemade 2lb cut of blond dewaxed flakes and methylated spirits. One coat of oil, four coats of shellac.

I put some thick leather pads on the feet, and then fitted the hanger assembly to the drawer box before moving onto the final glue ups.

And here we have it, the Gentleman’s Valet – done.